Tuesday, February 24, 2015

DANTE: The Inferno (Canto 12-14, Violent Sins)

Once Virgil has outlined the geography of Hell to Dante
they’re ready to continue on their journey.Dante says “your explanation certainly makes clear the nature of this
pit and of its inmates.”Now that he’s
been given a roadmap Dante can understand where they’re headed: “In the first
of the circles below are all the violent… to God, to self, or to one’s
neighbor.”The next three circles will
show the punishment for those who lived violent lives.But the punishments will vary depending on
how that violence was done.

Canto 12 shows the punishment for violence against
others.This is less serious than
violence done to one’s self or to God.It’s easy to see why violence against God is the most serious sin of the
three.But it seems odd that in Dante’s
view it’s more serious to harm myself than it is to harm others.In the proper perspective it makes sense that
suicide is worse than murder.So this first
level of violent souls houses those who spent their lives bringing violence to
their neighbors; those who loved war and tyranny and murder. It includes characters such as Alexander the
Great and Attila the Hun.

Canto 13 is reserved for those who committed suicide.Now Dante explains why suicide is worse than
murder.A Stoic philosopher, for
example, believes suicide is an honorable way to exit when life becomes
unbearable.But Socrates didn’t think
suicide was an acceptable solution and neither does Dante.Why not?Here’s the explanation given by Dante through one of the characters at
this level of Hell: “My mind…believing death would free me from all scorn, made
me unjust to me, who was all just.”This
particular soul had been a good man (he was “all just”) on earth until he
committed suicide.That was his
undoing.It’s interesting how suicide is
punished and may give some insight into why Dante thinks it’s worse than
murder.

“The moment that the violent soul departs the body it has
torn itself away from (by suicide), Minos sends it down to the seventh hole; it
drops to the wood, not in a place allotted, but anywhere that fortune tosses
it.”Here we should pause and reflect on
what is actually happening.The souls in
this level of Hell had abandoned all hope (remember the sign above the gate to
Hell).But these particular souls had
abandoned all hope before they ever left the earth.By choosing suicide they gave up their future
choices for any other path through life or any other destiny.This is the reason why a soul who commits
suicide is assigned “not in a place allotted, but anywhere fortune tosses it.”

It’s also instructive what Dante says will happen to these
souls at the Last Judgment.“Like the
rest, we shall return to claim our bodies, but never again to wear them.Wrong it is for a man to have again what he
once cast off.We shall drag them here
and all along the mournful forest our bodies will hang forever more.”On earth they had voluntary given up the
bodies they had been given by God.And
since they abandoned their bodies, their bodies abandoned them.Never more shall the two be reunited.Like so many of the punishments in Hell this
one seems harsh to many modern readers; someone desperate enough to take their
own life deserves pity and compassion instead of condemnation.But it doesn’t take a modern mind to feel
love and compassion.Dante feels it
too.He’s trying to make sense of it all
and he would be amazed so many modern minds think they have more love and
compassion than he does; possibly even more than God himself.